BeOS Ready for a Comeback as Zeta OS

Anil Kandangath writes "BeOS, the operating system that could have been the foundation for Mac OS X, but almost died, instead has returned as Zeta OS -- which is supposed to be fast, stable, media centric and boot within 15 seconds. Zeta is being released by yellowTAB of Germany and has applications such as an office suite and the Firefox browser bundled with it. Most BeOS applications will also run as-is. Screenshots are available." According to the NewsForge story linked there, the release could be as soon as next month.

Comments

Wow...

[cbreaker]

I can't believe how clueless you are.

"The BIOS screen alone on a typical motherboard takes at least 20 seconds, longer if it has SCSI and SATA"

I don't know what decade you're living in, but I don't even see the BIOS screen on my current desktop, because it goes by so fast the monitor doesn't have enough time to switch modes. Sometimes I might see a little glimpse of the SATA Raid controller showing the logical volume, but other then that, it's pretty much Power > Windows XP loading screen within 3 seconds.

Maybe you aren't realizing how long 20 seconds is. Stare at the clock for 20 seconds, and count with it. You'll realize this is a ridiculous claim.

"Now, Windows XP also does a lot of operations when first starting up that make it nearly useless until they complete"

Not useless. But I did say LOGIN SCREEN, not DESKTOP. Read, boy, READ next time!

" such as its indexing of the hard drive"

Huh? I don't know what kind of screwy shit you got going on but windows doesn't have to index my hard disk when it boots - the operation takes several hours on my machine (900GB volume) and it does it at night. But even if I told it to index all the time, the indexing service puts itself in a low priority and shouldn't interfere with operation of the computer (besides the disk cache being flushed out continuously.)

"So you get a login prompt, but it's a smaller lie."

Once you get the login screen, all essential software is loaded - video drivers, sound, network subsystem, etc. Even while the machine is finishing up loading other services, the computer is operable. You CAN login. Sure, it's not as fast as if you waited a few moments, but you can begin logging in instead of waiting until each and every little service is started.

"The system isn't really ready to operate for some noticeably longer period until those boot operations complete,"

It's perfectly ready to operate. Just because the desktop is a little slower loading up doesn't mean it's not ready. As I stated earlier, all essential software is loaded and the system is ready to go.

"This is typical Microsoft behavior, "

What is? Letting you login while background operations are happening? Damn you microsoft!

"deliver the usable stuff later when you get around to it and the custoomer has already bought in"

Ahh, a fair and balanced arguement.

"Linux, like other UNIX descendants, does its boot time setups in serial fashion. "

Yes, and because of this, you have to wait longer to begin using the computer.

"They can be heavily parrelized, which has led to some interesting optimization tools for exactly this purpose,"

This is what Windows does. It loads as many services as it can in parallel. Once it gets the basics done (as described earlier) it allows for user interaction ala the login prompt - while the rest of the stuff loads in the background.

"but it's been left serial on the grounds that it's much easier to code for and maintain and debug."

You speak for the Linux community?

Look - I'd rather be given the choice. You can simply wait longer before logging in, and let everything load if you want to. I prefer to begin using the computer, and have the desktop be slightly slower for a few moments while the background tasks are finishing up. Maybe your computer is ass and it can't handle the multitasking, or your disk subsystem is slow as shit and brings the computer down to a halt when loading.

Don't be blinded by your faith in Linux. I love Linux, and most of my machines are Linux. But I also don't dismiss everything else just because it's NOT Linux, or spread lies and/or FUD about other things. Linux is great, and this is NOT A FUCKING COMPARISON OF MICROSOFT TO LINUX.